Photonic band-gap (PBG) structures are utilized in microwave
components as filters to suppress unwanted signals. In this
work, rectangular perforations were created in the ground plane of a microstrip line to construct a PBG structure. A gold-coated alumina
substrate was utilized to switch or tune the bandstop characteristics of
this structure. It was demonstrated that the bandstop characteristics
were switched off from - 35 to - 1 dB at 16 GHz. Tuning of the bandstop
edge with a shift of 1.5 GHz was also shown